Felipe Massa believes Ferrari’s F138 is quiz enough for him to end a winless streak which began five years ago.

Massa hasn’t won a race since his victory at home in 2008 – the race in which he lost the world championship to Lewis Hamilton.

However he believes the F138 is a contender this year: “The work we did with the F138 over the winter has taken us in the right direction and the car has much more potential,” said Massa.

“Of course, I always want to be fighting for the win, although that did not work out in the first two races, but the signs were good with an excellent race pace and now we have to keep moving forward race by race.

“All I can say is that there are definitely more than two teams that are capable of fighting for the wins and the championship. Our team is one of them, with the car moving forward in the right way and it is delivering results on track that we expected when looking at data in the wind tunnel and the factory.”

Massa has turned around his form in the past 12 months – he is leading team mate Fernando Alonso in the championship and has out-qualified him in the last four races.

“The aim is to fight for a lot more points, for a podium, for a win even, because you have to set yourself high targets,” he said of this weekend’s race.